


Love and Marriage

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story from another pen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Marriage

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to wychwood and etben, who read a very early draft of this and helped me enormously with their comments. 
> 
> Written for Castiron

 

 

The first four years of their respective marriages saw few meetings between the cousins. Henry Crawford, true to his word, had purchased a small property in Northamptonshire, close by Thornton Lacey; but after the first pleasures of the honeymoon, and of much reading and hunting and other country pursuits, had died away, he became persuaded that his bride grew pale and listless and that a taste of London's delights would be necessary to restore her. And after all, he had said, smiling, to his sister, for all that was charming in Fanny's little rusticities and unspoiled ways, a little polish could not go amiss. 

Mary could not doubt of it. For herself, she had said, darting a look of mingled sweetness and mischief at Edmund, she had all the polish in the world and would need it all too, to impart some hint of town bronze to this country society and perhaps even to that country gentleman there. London, she went on, with a momentary seriousness that put Edmund in a glow of delight - they were not six weeks married - had nothing new to offer her, nothing that could tempt her. But for Fanny, oh, it would be the most charming scheme in the world. It had been a prudent decision for Henry to purchase a house of his own in town when he married, she had always said so. Fanny had said nothing, either then or later when Crawford pressed her, and so to London they went, for an indefinite visit that lengthened out, at last, for the whole four years.

Henry Crawford found that such of his wife's rusticities as he least adored - and, as the time passed, grew most to deplore - were the ones most resistant to all that town acquaintance and town entertainments could do. She learnt, at last, to dress and to make conversation about the weather and the play, but nothing could cure her of her long silences and her stillness, her resistance to even the most faintly salted humour, and her tendency to sermonise. And while it was delightful sport, at first, to seduce a laugh from reluctant lips, or to bring about a blushing falter in a homily, the habitual experience of it soon wore thin. Fanny never could return a jest or turn his teasing back on him; she would not in her wildest imaginings, such as they were, have dreamt of seducing _him_. It wore thin, and if he spent more time in the company of others, if Mrs. Rushworth's eyes, glittering in candlelight, occasionally caught his over a crowded dining table, there was no great harm in that. He took no true risks, mindful of the possibility of scandal, as entangled as their families were, and Fanny seemed to see nothing, feel nothing; in any event, she said nothing.

Such was the state of affairs when the Bertrams arrived unexpectedly in town. Henry had been mildly surprised to receive Mary's note announcing, in her way, their flight from Bertram's rural idyll; and truly astonished at their arrival the next morning. He had puzzled briefly, amusedly, over the image of Mary, _Mary_ of all women, as a mother twice-over when he had received her letters, but she was more greatly altered than he could have thought to imagine.

She entered the room, before Bertram, with a heavy decisive step; her dress was drab and countrified, matronly in fashion, though her figure was light as ever; and there was a hard square set to her mouth that he had never seen before. 

"Mary," he said, not knowing what to say, the light compliments halting on his tongue as he took her hands and looked into her face, and she laughed up at him, a colder sound that the sparkling ripple he knew. 

"Come, Henry, this is ungallant," she said. "I am not so very altered after all; 'tis nothing a touch of town polish will not cure. As it has benefited Fanny, I see: my dear, you look delightfully."

Fanny smiled a thanks, faint and sweet and perfectly courteous - she would not lie, of course, even to return a compliment - but her eyes were turning to Bertram, her hand already extended to him, and the expression in them... Henry felt a moment of sharp, strangely nostalgic pleasure in it, as at a memory he could not quite recollect revived, and then, as Bertram kissed her fingers and she smiled shiningly up at him, he remembered. Young Will Price, and Fanny Price - Fanny Price, at eighteen, in a glow of joy all over, and he had thought, then, _she has feeling, genuine feeling._

"Dearest Fanny," Mary said, a little vaguely, her eyes wandering to take in all the appointments and furnishings of the room, Edmund watching her over Fanny's head. It was a strange tableau they made for that moment - Edmund gazing at Mary with his hand still clasping Fanny's, Fanny's eyes raised to Edmund's turned profile, and Henry watching Fanny - and he thought for a moment of his wedding morning, laughing with Mary over the absurd, fairytale symmetry of their choices. _Mansfield of course,_ he had said then. _Mansfield had done it all._

*

"Mansfield!" Fanny cried out, that renewed glow in her eyes. "Oh, delightful!" 

"Yes, it is quite settled. Doctor Grant has accepted the living of another parish," Mary said, settling her skirts, "so it shall be my Moor Park, dear Henry, that is to be defended before Mrs. Norris, and my green geese that sustain all the sermons of the parish."

"Delightful," Henry said, unable to resist the sardonic note, though Bertram flinched slightly from it, and something of the bright colour faded from Fanny's face as she looked from one to the other. 

"More comfortable, at least," Bertram said quietly, to the carpet, and then raising his eyes to look directly at Mary. "The income from the living is considerably greater."

A faint pucker appeared between Fanny's brows; familiar enough to Henry, but he could not recall seeing it directed at Bertram before, and he had to bite his lip not to smile. _There_ was his wife.

"Surely Sir Thomas will be glad to have you so near," she said, gently censorious, "and you cannot doubt of being useful there." 

"Oh," Mary said, "as to that, a clergyman may be useful anywhere, even in London; I dare say, especially in London."

"Yes," Bertram said, low-voiced, not quite meeting Fanny's eyes, and he cleared his throat and said it again, looking over to Henry. "I had thought, Crawford, while I was in town, to try some of my interest in seeking a stall in London." 

"I am entirely at your service," Henry said, "though I have not much acquaintance in clerical circles. I believe that your brother Rushworth might be of more assistance."

"Oh yes!" Mary intervened, "how do the Rushworths do? How is dear Maria?" 

"She does well, I believe," Fanny answered, in the pale calm voice that served her for conversation as a London hostess, turning her attention from Bertram at last, and Crawford smiled and agreed, "oh, yes, tolerably well."

*

The following morning, he awoke so unexpectedly early that Fanny had not yet risen; so he woke to the slow sensation of her breath against his throat in the cool dawn air, her breast pressed almost against his arm. Her hair was a little disarrayed with sleep, one long tendril swept forward over the flushed curve of her cheek, and she was smiling faintly in her sleep, very sweetly. It filled him with astonished pleasure and he touched the pale nape of her neck, very gently, feeling a quick resolve rise in him to seize more of such moments in their future. Yes. He would wait till she woke, rise early with her, and they would breakfast together.

"Sir," she said, and he blinked awake again. It was broad day, the curtains drawn, and Fanny was dressed and pinning up her hair before the mirror. "Will you breakfast downstairs?"

"Yes," he said, blinking the sleep from his eyes and she bowed her head and left the room with her precise step.

Breakfast was a slow awkward affair. There was silence between Mary and Bertram, the evident consequence of a quarrel, and, with Fanny more subdued than usual, the duty to make conversation fell chiefly to Henry's lot. Bertram met him politely enough, and Mary with determined vivacity, but their efforts soon grew painful, and it was a relief to all when Mrs. Rushworth's note was brought in. 

It was scented and charmingly written, requesting their attendance for a small family party that evening and expressing how delightful it would be to see her dear brother and sister Bertram again, all in Maria's bold provincial hand; Fanny had never received a note half so civil from her. Mr. Rushworth, poor fellow, was out of town again. 

In common politeness, the invitation must be accepted. Henry, for his part, was glad of it. Another such occasion as the present, with whatever was amiss between Mary and Bertram and Fanny silent and watchful as a ghost, was to be avoided at all costs. At the very least, the formality of dining out and Maria's presence would enliven the party; and there was little doubt but that her presence would enliven him. She looked at him, still, with such a reckless mixture of desire and anger that he had to wonder what could have become of it had he happened to see her in town before his marriage. A very little conversation had already dispelled much of the cold formality in which her anger had first expressed itself, though she still kept a touch of distance in her manner towards him; that distance, combined with her vividly lingering gazes and her obvious attempts to play him off against her husband, added a piquancy to their meetings which no other casual flirt could match. She would add spice to the evening. 

"Do you meet often, Fanny?" Mary was saying, and Henry glanced up to catch Fanny's brief opaque look at him, before she answered, 

"Oh, yes, frequently."

"I hope," Bertram said heavily, "that Maria is - that she is content."

It was Fanny he looked to, and she paused for a length before answering this time, her voice coming very low and earnest at last.

"I believe she tries."

Henry caught Mary's dark eyes darted at him just then, and could not help the twist of his smile; she lifted her brows in response and, in that moment, was his sister again.

*

"The fact is, Henry," she said, later, in his study, while Fanny showed Edmund over the rest of the house, "I was not made for a clergyman's wife, and we both know it. And he," her mouth twisted in an expression of bitterness that startled him from her, "oh, he was born a clergyman."

"But if Bertram is to seek a stall in London -" 

"Oh," she interrupted him, "if that were all."

She halted a long moment, studying the ground a moment without speaking, while he waited in increasing perturbation. They could hear footsteps approach, the low murmur of Fanny and Edmund's voices rising down the hall. At last she looked up, with the false, rattling laugh with which she had used to speak of the Admiral. 

"He thinks me very corrupt, you know," she said, the attempted amusement in her tone making her voice very dry. "I have heard quite the best of his sermons over the breakfast table."

"Dear Fanny," she went on with hardly a break as the door opened, "I quite depend on you to instruct me as to the proper mode. I must have a new wardrobe entire."

Henry saw Bertram's lips tighten at that, saw Fanny's solicitous glance up at him. It could not be too soon before they departed for the Rushworths', he thought, feeling the walls close around them in his first true moment of longing for his bachelor freedom. _I cannot get out_ , he thought vaguely, not quite remembering which woman had said that to him and why. Still, he thought, meeting Fanny's softly pretty eyes, her pale polite smile, it could doubtless be worse; as it was, he believed he could bear it. Fanny, who had long since reached the same conclusion, took her arm from Edmund's and her eyes from his uncertain profile, and rang for tea. 

*

Maria was very lovely that night, flushed bright and brilliant with jewels and expensive silks; Edmund had startled at the sight of her, not having expected such splendour for a small family party, but it was clear he took no great pleasure in her loveliness. He smiled his compliments when she gave him her hands, but Fanny could see the disapprobation and disappointment begin to weigh on his brow. 

She could not be surprised. It was not much he had expected, she knew, but he had permitted himself the hope that marriage and motherhood would have conferred some seriousness of mind, some trace of honest feeling. It was hard indeed to find all alteration for the worse: youth's freshness and candour lost, the courtesy that decorum had imposed upon her at Mansfield faded to nothing, and nothing of worth gained in return. 

Fanny herself had suffered much for Maria when she had first come to London, though she had started to feel a dullness grow over her sensibility in the last few years; but now Edmund was present and, with him and for him, she flinched again from each slighting reference to Maria's absent husband, from Henry's satirical frivolities on matters sacred and Mary's earnest raptures over the merest trifles of dress and fashion; it pierced her with a purity of shame and sorrow she had not felt since her nineteenth year. It was as though Edmund had brought the clear atmosphere of Mansfield with him, dispelling the grey fogs of London; and when she met his eyes, the deep thrill of their old sympathy, even in grief, was like coming awake after years lost in sleep.

*

"My father will be much disappointed," Edmund said, the following morning. 

The Crawfords, as Fanny still found herself thinking of them, had breakfasted early and gone out to renew some town acquaintance of Mary's, leaving Fanny and Edmund the freedom of the house. After some meandering, they had repaired, almost by instinct, to the conservatory, Fanny's favourite room in all the house; its potted plants and rustic benches, despite their narrow compass, mimicked enough of the sweet greenery of the country that she was more comfortable there than anywhere else. 

"He has thought often of coming to town, but Maria - I cannot understand Maria."

"I think she has been very unhappy," Fanny replied. "And she has not," she hesitated, but Edmund's eyes turned to her with a look of painful inquiry and she went on, stammering a little, to say what she had hardly dared to think at Mansfield. "I fear she has not known, she does not always know her duty where inclination does not lead." 

He drew an audible breath.

"That is hard, Fanny," he said. He took her hands in his, almost involuntarily, as he always had done, seeking and giving comfort both. "It will be a hard truth for my father to hear." 

She said nothing; his hand caressed hers, very lightly. He was not much changed, though she thought with an unhappy pang that there was something drained and exhausted about his gentleness as there had not been before.

"My Fanny," he said, very quietly into the peaceful silence; and she smiled up at him just as he bent to kiss her forehead, so his lips touched her brow instead. His hand was on her shoulder.

"Cousin," she said, her breath coming short, and he stepped back sharply at the very moment she withdrew her hands from his. There was high colour in his face, his expression alarmed; her pulse beat harshly at her temples and she felt herself stumble hurriedly backwards, her hand going to the amber cross at her throat.

"The tea, madam."

She turned quickly, grateful. 

"Thank you, Frederick," she said. "Shall I pour?"

"Please," Edmund said. He cleared his throat, gave her one of his old affectionate smiles as she handed him his cup. "My mother has never found anyone else to pour the tea to her satisfaction. I'm afraid I have not your knack for it, Fanny."

She smiled, relieved.

"I hope my aunt is well."

"Tolerably well. She misses you, of course." He set his cup down on the table. "She had not quite realised how -" 

He looked up, his eyes dark and earnest.

"None of us realised how beloved you are at Mansfield, Fanny," he said. "How necessary."

"I hope that Henry," she was breathless again, her voice wavering before she caught herself. "I hope that we shall be able to pay them a visit in the new year. And how is -"

"Fanny," he interrupted, with a violence the more startling for being so fiercely suppressed. "You _cannot_ be happy here. Any more," he hesitated and then drove on, "any more than I am with her." 

The colour rushed to her face, dizzying. Edmund. _Edmund_ was - he was coming towards her, hands outstretched, and before she knew what she was doing she had struck them away from her. 

They stood for a long moment in terrible silence. Edmund's face had taken on a rigid pallor; his hands opened and closed by his sides and then he took an unsteady step backward and dropped into a chair, covering his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Fanny, I -" His expression was one of mingled bewilderment and guilt, and she saw clearly that he was very greatly changed; all the purpose had gone out of him, all the ardour, and he was only a thin-faced unhappy man in a faded clerical stock, entering the middle years of his life. 

"I am very tired," he said and the words resounded in her mind like an echo. She knew suddenly that she was very tired too; and there was still the dinner order to be given, and the new plate to be put away, and Henry and Mary returning within the hour.

"I know," she answered him. Her dress was a little disarrayed; she rearranged it. "You had better go home, Edmund. Tomorrow."

She gave him her hand a last time and he clasped it with his own, mechanically; she looked down at their two wedding bands, intertwined, and knew his gaze was upon them too. 

"I know."

*

"Edmund tells me they must leave us tomorrow."

Henry glanced up from undoing his cravat, with a faint surprised frown.

"So soon?" 

"Yes."

He finished unbuttoning his sleeves, still frowning. 

"Damned peculiar," he said and then caught himself and winced, theatrically apologetic. "Pardon me."

She said nothing, and he touched her cheek lightly, half-absent, half-caressing.

"I am afraid your cousin's is not quite a marriage of true minds, my dear," he said. 

"No," she agreed; his eyes met hers and she knew they both heard the unspoken words that came next. 

"Love is not love," he said, instead, musingly. "That alters where it alteration - shall I read to you a little, Fan? Prose or poetry?"

"Prose," she answered quickly, "I should like that very much," and he smiled his crooked, mocking smile and took up the volume of essays that filled up the hour and a half that they always allowed to pass each night before he kissed her good night and put out the candle. 

 


End file.
